Delegate, convention hall--Chicago 1956

This is a photograph by Robert Frank, ‘Delegate, convention hall—Chicago’. The date’s unknown, and in some ways, that adds to the mystery. What grabs me first is the grainy texture, like a memory trying to surface. It’s all in black and white, of course, which lends it this timeless quality, but it's also about the real grit of the image itself, that sense of something a little rough and not smoothed over. There’s a woman, maybe a delegate as the title suggests, smack in the center, but it's the Dr. Pepper machines behind her that create this bizarre kind of portrait. They feel like silent sentinels, or maybe they are the real delegates here, standing in for the everyday, consumerist reality underpinning the political theatre. The TV flickering above, adds another layer of detachment. Frank’s camera is unflinching; he’s not selling us anything. It's more like he’s asking us to look, really look, at what’s there. Frank reminds me of Walker Evans, also drawn to the everyday, but with a raw, almost confrontational edge. It’s that willingness to embrace the messy, unresolved parts of life that makes his work so compelling, even now.